An Accidental New Year

My elderly parents spent New Year's Eve in the emergency room of a city hospital because some moron rear ended them in his delivery truck at 35 miles per hour. With my father's history of spinal injuries and surgeries, it's amazing the impact didn't break him in two. My mother, luckily, was also OK.

But they aren't really OK. Their backs are shaken up and so are their nerves. Their car, which is their main transportation to get around town, is totaled from the rear.

And if this is anything like my own personal experience, they are going to be waiting a very long time for reparations to their vehicle and their insurance. I will tell them not to hold their breath that the idiotic driver will ever be as punished as they have been.

Case in point--a story involving my own car.

I loaned my car last year to a relative. They were subsequently involved in a road rage incident that left them the victims of a ticked off teenage hooligan. Several gun shots to the car later, they miraculously escaped without any physical harm.

But more than half a year later, I still have a bullet hole in my windshield and cracks as long as my arm. And have I been compensated? Nope. Not one dime. I refuse to submit it to my insurance because why should I be punished with higher premiums because some thug willfully shot at my car??

The authorities reassure me that the junior Al Capone will be reimbursing us soon. Then we are told it might not be all at once because the family can't afford it.

Someone call the Whambulance. I can barely afford our mortgage, but I still have to pay it every month or we can loose our home. I don't have the luxury of paying it $25 at at time.

But there appears to be no recourse. The system is not forcing this kid or his family to pay me back the thousands of dollars they OWE me. If you can't pay your way, you have to get a job. If you still can't, you might have to get another job. And another. This kid has enough time to hunt people down and shoot at their heads while they are driving, he has time for a job. His parents should have to sell something of theirs. And if they don't have anything to sell, maybe THEY need to get another job, too.

I am tired of injustice. I am tired of there often being little recourse for the "little guy" in society. My parents are stuck at home with neck braces while the man who did this to them is probably driving the streets once more as if nothing happened.

I am looking at a car that looks like it was in a GODFATHER movie and the punk who did it is probably laughing somewhere.

The system works. Sometimes. And sometimes the bad guys get the upper hand.

Here's to an accidental New Year! Hope the rest of the year makes a little less of an impact, if you get what I mean.

This week, Martha sat down with Gerri Willis, FOX Business Network anchor and personal finance reporter, to discuss her untold story about her battle with breast cancer, how it changed her outlook on life and more!